Apbil 29, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



657 



cultivated with profit in the original thir- 

 teen states are now agriculturally aban- 

 doned is common knowledge ; that much of 

 the land in all adjoining states is in the 

 process of abandonment is known to many ; 

 and that the common lands in the great 

 agricultural regions in central United 

 States are even now in process of the most 

 rapid soil depletion ever witnessed is 

 known to all who possess the facts. 



Already the question of food has begun 

 to exert pressure in this country. Already 

 the masses, the eommonpeople, the "ninety 

 per cent.," must consider a reduction in 

 their standard of living. Poverty and de- 

 generacy are even now making such de- 

 mands upon the revenues of the state that 

 education and research already suffer 

 from inadequate support; and the only 

 hope of the future lies in the application 

 of science and education to the control of 

 industry and to the control of population; 

 and let us never forget that agxiculture is 

 the basis of all industry, and that the fer- 

 tility of the soil is the absolute support of 

 every form of agriculture. 



Some will say that the economic condi- 

 tions have been such that the depletion of 

 the lands of the eastern states has been a 

 necessary sequence, and that the restora- 

 tion of those lands will now follow as an 

 economic necessity. I beg of you, do not 

 accept any such theoretical deductions. 

 If systems of permanent progressive agri- 

 culture are ever to be adopted anywhere in 

 this country, it must be done while the 

 landowners are still prosperous. Some 

 investment is necessary for the restoration 

 of depleted soil, and poverty makes no in- 

 vestments. Much of the abandoned lands 

 of America are far past the point of pos- 

 sible self-redemption. They were de- 

 pleted not because of any economic neces- 

 sity, but because of ignorance, and the 

 fault lies not with the farmers and land 



owners, but with the educators who even 

 until the present generation have taught 

 almost everything except the application 

 of science to agriculture. The fault lies, 

 also with the statesmen who, as James J. 

 Hill says, have "unduly assisted manufac- 

 ture, commerce and other activities that 

 center iu cities, at the expense of the 

 farm." 



There was no need whatever that the 

 cultivable farm lands of the eastern states 

 should have been depleted. Lying at the 

 door of our greatest markets, with the- 

 application of knowledge and with such, 

 encouragement as should have been given,, 

 those lands could easily have been pre- 

 served and even increased in fertility until 

 their present value would have been not 

 five dollars, but five hundred dollars an 

 acre. 



Even now are the young men of the 

 United States putting ninety million dol- 

 lars a year into Canadian farms. Why? 

 Because they were not taught in the 

 schools that by investing those millions in 

 the application of science to agriculture 

 they can remain in the United States and 

 secure greater profit and also save our soils 

 from depletion; yes, make our partially 

 depleted lands even more productive than 

 they ever were, and at the same time pro- 

 vide the food that will soon be required to 

 feed our own children. 



Why do we permit the annual exporta- 

 tion of more than a million tons of our 

 best phosphate rock, for which we receive 

 at the mines the paltry sum of five million 

 dollars, carrying away from the United 

 States an amoimt of the only element of 

 plant food we shall ever need to buy, that, 

 if retained in this country and applied to 

 our own soils, would be worth not five mil- 

 lion, but a thousand million dollars, for 

 the production of food for the oncoming 

 generation of Americans? 



